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3/3/2014 4:12PM

U.S. Electric Grid Ill-Prepared to Handle an Attack

The U.S. electric grid could take months to recover from a physical attack because it would be so hard and expensive to replace critical transformers if they were destroyed. Rebecca Smith reports on the News Hub. Photo: AP.

This transcript has been automatically generated and may not be 100% accurate.

... the the ... new series about the vulnerability of the U S however it's true that if the U S like that then boarded a it's ... a critique Munster appear that an age ... when their kids could potentially Ace extended black ... here with the D tells of her latest story is the law Street Journal's Rebecca thing ... I Rebecca ... I Sarah ... when you're in that this mystery damaging the lactic Reid are talking about the Fed meets your transformer is what this thing takes a long to fix or a plate ... he sits there the strips Lee Jelly pieces of a button and some awesome way as much as eight hundred thousand pounds they're made of tons and tons of copper and steel ... so they're very intricate machines they're very ... massive machines ... it can often take the year to build on and on month or two to move them so it's a very vault process and how the better margins at how the Transformers work why they're still pivotal to the U S power ... they are the glue that holds the grid together they are the big machines that control voltage it's ... so when power comes out of the out of a power plant ... the increase the voltage put it on power lines and then when it gets close to cities they reduce the voltage so no one at a right to your house it's that perfect hundred and ten hundred twenty volts ... be you need to light that of Michael ... so without ... these big Transformers there is so we like the Korean ... so the Fed ... takes on a potentially really long time to repair replace the St farmers what I mean for our ability to get power back if something did happen if there were an attack ... it means a huge problem because it's not only that these things are hard to make it harder for a place ... it's that we have ... a certain honest there inventory in the US that each one of these machines as custom design for its location ... so you might have a ... say of five hundred KB transformer for one substation ... you can't move it to another one because it has other technical specifications ... the upshot of this is that if there were a lot of such cases here in many these Transformers damage we could help ... local ice or even larger ... power outages that would go on for many many months it ... definitely scary to think about in your place against ... a while reporting on this attack last year ... was on a power station that provides liked received a fillip and Valley ... did did did during that attack and more people thinking about contingency plans thinking about the plot in the system ... to be so absolutely Sara I mean you can find references to the fear of what would happen if transformers were destroyed in many federal courts ... going back decades ... but it was all three theoretical until recently now we saw the gunman could hit a substation here in United States ... cause a lot of damage in the state ... they haven't been apprehended ... so of course there's worry now that that happened that were replicated wants of locations ... it could cause a massive amount of of of of this dislocation ... and other Proms with the grant ... that was in that situation they were able to maintain power and actually a lot of people didn't even know that happened so how big of an attack are we talking about when we talk about sending that can potentially cause extended black ... well one thing that we would probably be you referring to is on an attack on different sub stations in the one ... that was hit in California it that substation ... on what's important Silicon Valley is not one of the major once the US ... so we're talking about attacks potentially on critical ups ... aam and that ... furnished power to much larger areas ... and scary vulnerabilities Aaron Back and thanks for joining us ... my pleasure